E1E LED circuit

Robocop

Mammoth Killer
Joined
Nov 13, 2003
Messages
2,648
Location
Birmingham Al.
I have two of the Lumens Factory E1E LED drop ins ordered and while reading the details there was a warning not to use protected batteries with this drop in. Can anyone explain what a protected battery would do to damage this circuit? It seems unusual to me as I have never seen such a warning on any other drop ins that I can recall.
 
My guess is that protected cells are too long and can crush the led module as there's no spring at the head end. I only run primary cr123s in mine so I don't know for sure.
Mine runs at about 200-250 lumens at 3v, so not full output, but I'm happy with that. It's not a thrower at all and has a pleasant floody beam.
 
Not an LED drop-in but the Emisar series of lights carry the very same warning. Honestly, it's why I chose their D3AA model over their 18650 offering. At least with the D3AA, I can run it on a AA Energizer rechargeable instead of having to run it with an unprotected 14500 lithium cell.
 
GMT2330 I tend to agree that it must have something to do with the physical size of the battery. I believe the power coming from the cell is the same between protected and non protected cells thus the warning did not make sense to me. Regardless I will follow the warning as I purchased two units for something like 90 dollars. I would hate to destroy them and I have something like 30 protected cells that will fit just fine.
 
Yes, the longer length of the "Protected" batteries is the exact reason.
Those battery makers are making them longer and longer nowadays completely disregarding the specs.
18650, 16340, etc. used to mean something.
Then they go and slap on protection circuits, charging ports, etc. making them crazy long.

For 18650: 18mm is the diameter of the cell, 65mm is the length of the cell.
For 16340: 16mm is the diameter and 34mm is the length.

The Surefire E Series lights has an internal stepped "lip" at the tailcap side, that means if you use a longer cell it will sit higher.
When you screw the head on with the LED module there is a lot of torque and I have seen the driver crack in half in the worst case.
Most cases is that it causes contact issues with the negative contact not touching the host because the battery is longer and sticking up towards the front end.

The E1e were never meant for those longer cells, so please do not use them.

Cheers.

Mark
 
My two drop ins arrived today and man are these little units just plain cool. They really do well in the E1E and run fine with standard cr123 cells as well as unprotected rechargeable cells. I can tell you all that I have settled right back in where I left off as I have a huge list of stuff I want to buy next. Looks like I may not retire after all as I had forgotten how expensive this little hobby can be.....yes I just saw these very cool L1 style 3 mode triple head units. Dang this love hate relationship here is a familiar old feeling.

Thanks for the info everyone....
 
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